


Upside Down

by octopus_fool



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Khazâd November, Misgendering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 15:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12684453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/pseuds/octopus_fool
Summary: Borin was not entirely sure why her parents had done it.





	Upside Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 11 of [Khazâd November](https://a-grump-of-dwarves.tumblr.com/post/166304116735/khaz%C3%A2d-november-2017), the additional prompt was "birth".  
> 

Borin was not entirely sure why her parents had done it. Perhaps it was the dragons’ fault. They were becoming ever stronger and more aggressive. The royal line needed another branch, an official one, one that would show up in the family tree. 

Borin was not sure why they chose her and not her older sister. Maybe when Lori had been born, they were still hoping for another son, a spare. Borin’s birth was a difficult one. Perhaps they knew they would have no other son. Whatever the reason was, the daughter was proclaimed as a son. 

It was not something Borin minded. She had more freedoms because of it. Luckily, Lori didn’t mind either, preferring to be less in the spotlight. And their brother Dáin, well, he didn’t get to complain. 

It took Borin years to notice that things worked a bit differently in other families, that her family was unusual in that she shouldn’t just keep her true name a secret, but that she should also not mention she was a girl around others. 

For a while, she wondered how she was to find a husband. But even that proved to be less of a problem than expected. Her parents sent her on a small diplomatic mission to the Firebeards in the Blue Mountains, where such things were less of an issue. When she fell in love with her Farbur, he was surprised to find out about the constellation in which she lived in the Grey Mountains. After brief consideration, he was more than happy to live the rest of his life in the Grey Mountains as her “wife”. 

Things became slightly more complicated when Borin became pregnant. But again, it was nothing that couldn’t be solved by a diplomatic visit to her husband’s kin. Being pregnant on the road was less than pleasant, even with her husband’s and her sister’s support. She now knew why most dwarrowdams never left the mountains when pregnant. Long before they had reached the Blue Mountains, Borin had decided that this would be her only pregnancy. She had also decided that she would not make her child play the same game her parents had hoisted on her. Her brother had two sons and two daughters and her sister also had two sons, not that they were on the official family tree, but the line ought to be secure enough. 

She needn’t have worried. After a birth that was far easier than she had expected after her difficult pregnancy, Borin finally held her son in her arms. She fell in love with his rosy little feet and the red fuzz upon his cheeks the first time she saw him. 

It only became difficult once they were back in the Grey Mountains again. She became the most involved father the kingdom had seen in decades, but she still had to spend more time away from her son than she would have liked, attending meetings and organising the kingdom’s defence. Farbur was a great mother to Farin, but Borin still felt she was missing out. 

The first time Farin called her “Adad”, it broke her heart. Her entire life, she hadn’t minded being male to the world, but suddenly, she did. She wanted to be her son’s mother.


End file.
